PEBKAC.

The performance monitoring in Vista is ages better than the one in XP. It is very simple to tell what service is thrashing your disk. Manual setting of a service does not mean it's disabled, they can still start in manual under certain conditions. Perhaps you should have set the service to gee I don't know...DISABLED?

Then again you chose a dual-core over a quad-core for multiboxing, so this doesn't surprise me. Imma go get a rowboat for your river of tears....brb.

Well Senior System Admin, can't figure out how to use a brand new OS? 8)